Citation
Foreign evacuees came out of Kigali, Rwanda, today, bearing horror stories of sweeping civil strife that left their Rwandan friends and neighbors slain or in hiding and fearing for their lives.
Many of the more than 170 Americans and Europeans who traveled in caravans to neighboring Burundi and were then flown here by United States military planes arrived shaken, with few belongings. But they brought many accounts of the days of bloodshed that began in Rwanda on Wednesday when the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed when their plane crashed at the Kigali airport, reportedly after being hit by a rocket.
It was the most basic terror,
said Chris Grundmann, 37, an American evacuee, describing the fears of the Rwandan civilians and officials who were targets of the violence. He and his family, hunkered down in their house with mattresses against the windows, heard the ordeals of Rwandan victims over a two-way radio.
The U.N. radio was filled with national staff screaming for help,
he said. They were begging: 'Come save me! My house is being blown up,' or 'They're killing me.' There was nothing we could do. At one point we just had to turn it off.
Since Wednesday, it is estimated that more than 20,000 people have been killed in fighting between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority that have struggled for dominance since Rwanda won independence from Belgium in 1962. On Friday alone, the main hospital had many hundreds of bodies before noon. [ Page A12. ]
Mr. Grundmann, an official with the Centers for Disease Control, said members of the Tutsi ethnic group were among the worst hit in the first night of fighting.
The family's cook, a Tutsi, came to their home begging for help on Friday after having spent three days pretending to be dead.
He told us that on Wednesday night someone had thrown a grenade into his home,
Mr. Grundmann said in an interview here today. He escaped through an open window, but he thinks his wife and children died. For 36 hours he played dead in a marsh. There were bodies all through the marsh. He said there were heads being thrown in.
When we left, we gave him all the food in the house, and I showed him where he could hide in the rafters,
he continued. He didn't dare go out.
No one has taken responsibility for the downing of the plane that
killed the two Presidents, Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien
Ntaryamira of Burundi. The Rwandan Government has accused the rebel
Rwandan Patriotic Front, made up mostly of Tutsis. It is still unclear
who started the ensuing fighting and why they did it.
Cease-Fire on Saturday
The heaviest fighting started at first light on Thursday and
concentrated first on one of the many hills of Kigali, in an area
where Government ministers and many Americans lived. From Thursday
until a cease-fire on Saturday morning, hardly any of those evacuated
left their homes or hiding places, and those who did saw the bloodshed
firsthand.
In the Rwandan capital, houses were broken into, shops were looted,
and there were dead bodies in the streets, Marty Fields, a business
manager for the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, said today
after he was flown to Nairobi. Mr. Fields said he had seen Rwandan
soldiers as well as civilians armed with machetes, spears, bows and
arrows roaming the streets.
But what he remembers most vividly is a man on the side of the road,
kneeling and begging for mercy from Rwandan soldiers. They shot the
man three times in the head, he said.
The foreigners were in the middle of the violence, but most were
immune from harm in the ethnic war.
For almost 36 hours, 13-year-old Hanne Steen, her parents and sister
lay huddled in a hallway of their home while soldiers and looters
threw grenades into the homes of their Rwandan neighbors in Kigali.
Thursday night was the worst time,
Hanne said. There was no light,
no telephone and gunshots throughout the night. I was so nervous. I
couldn't eat. I was nauseous. We were in the hallway with pillows over
our heads to stop the noise. We could hear the bullets whistle over
our heads.
The American family ate candy and canned tuna fish and kept in touch
with the outside world by two-way radio.
Hanne's mother, Kathy Shapiro, who works for Unicef, said Rwandan
co-workers reported that the streets were filled with bodies. One
staff member was forced by soldiers to put at least six bodies into a
ditch,
she said.
Richard Steen, Hanne's father, who works with an AIDS control and
prevention project, said, We just held the kids and told them we
would get through it, that it was not aimed at us.
Neighbors Hacked to Death
The attackers struck close to home, though. Among those who lost their
lives were neighbors of the Steens -- the family of a senior official
-- who were hacked to death.
Those evacuated today had left Kigali on Saturday just after noon in
three car convoys organized by the American Embassy in Rwanda, and the
first arrived in the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, at about 9:30
P.M. the same day.
Pia Chesnais, 36, a health contract worker for the United States
Agency for International Development, was new to Kigali, and was
without her family, a car or a radio when the fighting began.
There was a Rwandan colonel's house 500 yards from mine,
said
Mrs. Chesnais, who spent Thursday through Saturday holed up with a bag
of rice, some honey and a case of beer. People just started throwing
grenades, rolling them under the door. I wasn't scared. I knew
somebody would come get me.
She was rescued by a colleague with a car on Saturday morning.
Her colleague, Dick Roberts, described their moment of fear.
At one point on the road a pickup approached with three soldiers,
Mr. Roberts said. One soldier had a rocket launcher. He kept it aimed
right at us. There was nothing we could do except keep on driving very
slowly. He came up to us and then he lowered it and smiled.
Intervention
Foreign Missions In African Lands Foreign forces have
been sent into African nations many times in the last 30 years,
following the end of colonial rule. Some of those instances follow:
1993 Rebels in Rwanda launch an offensive against the
Government. France sends 700 troops to protect foreigners.
1992 A United Nations intervention force lands in Somalia to protect relief
efforts in a country where civil war is causing mass starvation.
1991 Zairian soldiers mutiny because they have not been paid. Belgium sends
800 paratroopers, and American military planes transport 1,200 French
Foreign Legionnaires to evacuate 20,000 foreigners.
1990 The Rwandan
Government and rebel soldiers wage battles that encroach on the
capital, Kigali. French Foreign Legionnaires and Belgian paratroopers
take the airport and evacuate nearly 1,000 Europeans and
Americans.
1990 Rebel groups battle in Monrovia, Liberia's
capital. American Marines rescue 2,400 foreigners in a seven-month
operation.
1990 Rebels in Somalia fight to oust the dictator, Mohammed
Siad Barre. United States Marines fly diplomats out, Italian troops
rescue hundreds of expatriates, and a French frigate picks up 47
expatriates stranded on the coast.
1984 With American support, Israeli
troops secretly evacuate 8,000 Ethiopian Jews from northern
Ethiopia.
1976 Israel sends commandos to rescue hostages from a French
airliner that has been hijacked by Palestinians and flown to
Uganda.
1960 Belgian troops intervene in the Republic of the Congo,
later Zaire, shortly after independence to protect Belgian nationals
after an armed forces mutiny. A United Nations force intervenes
after the provinces of Katanga secedes.
